CA Course Reporters: Saturday afternoon entries

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Editor's note: Courtney Burris, Johnie Freatman and Owais Durrani will be blogging this week at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship. The three are part of the CA Course Reporters program. Check back each day to see what they have to say.

Archive: Wednesday's entries | Thursday morning | Thursday afternoon | Friday morning | Friday afternoon | Saturday morning

A time to relax
By Owais Durrani

This afternoon was really about enjoying golf, enjoying the players and enjoying some more behind the scenes access. We went up to the CA Skyboxes and chilled out. These seats are where the CA executives and top CA customers get to watch the tournament. From getting a perfect view to remaining in the shade, these seats are really the places to be. Primarily, you can actually track the ball and follow it all the way to the hole. Along with the free snacks and drinks, you get to remain in the shade and stay cool. I was roaming around and even got a chance to meet the mayor of Miami. He was a very nice guy and was checking on everyone to make sure they were finding everything okay -- just like everyone else, very hospitable.

The skyboxes we occupied are located above the grandstands around the 18th hole. The true difficulty of the hole was apparent from this high-up location. The hole features a dogleg par 4 with water all along the left side and two points where the water pops out -- one in the middle of the fairway and the other in front of the green. We saw at least 10 balls go into the water -- even the professionals were having fits with this hole. All in all, the true difficulty of the hole can be appreciated from the skyboxes.

Once more today I saw the importance of all the volunteers. I saw volunteers all along the holes, in the towers operating ShotLink, and even now in the media room they are updating scores as I type. We met with John Steinbauer, former tournament director (his son is J.R. is now the vice tournament director), and saw how involved whole families were in each tournament. For example John is volunteering along with his wife, son, two daughters and daughter-in-law. His whole family is basically volunteering -- that is what needs to be talked about more and appreciated more.

After enjoying golf from the skyboxes, we had the privilege of standing in on a flash interview with Tiger Woods. A flash interview takes place in a tent right after a player signs the scorecard. These are meant to get a quick reaction from the player and to not have to waste the players' time in the actual press conference room. It was really awesome being so close to Tiger and listening to his answers. What I took away was that people like Tiger are just normal people that have some natural ability -- not some super humans that we can't relate to. About his round, Tiger made it clear that his stroke and swing were fine -- he just wasn't making putts. After an exciting interview session we saw an even more exciting player.

In the Patriots' hospitality area I talked about earlier, the CA Championship had set up something called Pros vs. G.I. Joes. What an exciting experience -- as players would sign their scorecards, they would come to this area and play Tiger Woods 2009 with American troops stationed in Germany through X-Box live. Now, that's what I'm talking about. First up was the country boy, Boo Weekley. He was totally shocked that such technology even existed. Once he started playing as Tiger Woods he had quite a few laughs. For example after a bad shot he said, "That's how I was playing outside." Boo had many more laughs, and after playing he signed a few Guitar Hero guitars to be sent to the troops. Once again, I saw how golf pros were generous people we can all relate to. After Boo came Davis Love III, who also needed a few tips from seasoned X-Box gamers to get the hang of playing live. After we left, I realized how much this probably meant to the troops in Germany. We need to appreciate the troops and their sacrifice more in our everyday lives -- that is my lesson learned today. I praise CA and other sponsors who had the sense to set up something so special.

Today was probably the most exciting day yet. We really enjoyed each aspect of our day. Now I am off to catch Phil play the back nine. Hope he keeps it together and ends up winning. I will have one more blog entry tomorrow. 'Til then take care.

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Living it up at Doral
By Courtney Burris

This afternoon I experienced the "good life" while sitting in the CA-sponsored hospitality grandstand just behind the 18th green watching the best golfers in the world try to tackle the "Blue Monster." The famous finishing hole proved to be pretty tough for the groups that we watched. We didn't see a single birdie. Tiger came away with a solid par on the hole, but we did not catch up with him until the flash interview area. It was so awesome to stand with the all of the reporters while they tried to get Tiger to answer their questions. He claims that he is very happy with his ball striking saying "I hit the best I've hit in a long time." The putts just are not falling for the great TW. I have learned from my years of golf not to give up on him. His Sunday birdie stretches are usually how he gets the job done. It's not over until the fat lady sings, or whatever that saying is!

I wrote earlier about the down- to-earth personality of Boo Weekley and then got to watch him play video games this afternoon. Pretty human if you ask me. Mr. Weekley was at the Patriot Outpost just chilling after his round today. It was quite a sight to watch him struggle to learn how to play the popular X-Box Live game Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 2009. It was apparent that he spends more time actually playing than virtually playing -- which is a good thing. Boo's opponents were two American soldiers stationed in Germany. After Boo was three down he jokingly told the two soldiers that they had too much time on their hands if they were so good at this game. One characteristic of Boo that is admirable is his ability to move on. He shot 3 over, obviously not near his potential, but was joking about his round the whole time. When one of the soldiers asked him what he shot today he replied, "Three over, they sure don't call it the Blue Monster for nothing." When he hit a shot over the green he said, "That's what I was doing today." Always in a joking spirit, you just gotta love this guy! He was also super kind to all the fans and media. No matter what he shoots, I will give him an A+ for his incredible personality.

Well, tomorrow is the day everyone is waiting for Somebody is going to win and 78 are going to lose. Who will it be? Beats me! Will Phil hold on? Can Tiger catch up? What about that young Irish kid? Who knows? Either way it is going to be a great finishing day of the World Golf Championships-CA Championship. For the players out there, I wish them all fairways, greens, and a great time no matter who takes the trophy.

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Another example of a gentleman's game
By John Freatman, Jr.

We as sports fans are in an era where all too frequently our breaking news consists of a new steroid revelation or an athlete "accidentally" shooting himself. Golf, however, is relatively free from controversy and players like Aaron Baddeley only serve to reinforce golf's traditional reputation as a gentlemen's game.

As all golfers know, golf has some very arcane rules and it is nearly impossible to know them all. This morning, Baddeley hit his drive on the third hole into the hazard. It was in a place where he could take a stance, though. After realizing he had a stone under his foot, he summoned a rules official and asked whether he could move it within the Rules of Golf. The official told him that he could not intentionally move the rock. Then when Baddeley got to No. 9 on Saturday his mind flashed to the day before, when he had kicked a stone out from under his foot in the same hazard at the third hole. So Baddeley reported the violation to the rules official, knowing it would likely lead to a disqualification. Sure enough, this infraction is a two-stroke penalty and Baddeley had already signed his scorecard; hence, he received the penalty for signing an incorrect scorecard -- a disqualification.

The best part of this story is Baddeley's reaction. In response to the incident, he said "You have to be honest with yourself. I've got to be able to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror. That's the great thing about this game. You know you can trust all the guys out there because you know they're going to do the same." This is the type of response that would make Bobby Jones proud. Jones was somebody who embodied the concept of golf's status as a gentleman's game and was miffed when people praised him for his honesty, saying it is the duty of every golfer to follow the rules.

However, Baddeley is by no means an island. During last winter's PGA TOUR National Qualifying School, J.P. Hayes realized that for one hole he had played a non-conforming ball. It is important to realize the stakes inherent in q-school. Only the low 25 players and ties at the third and final stage get their PGA TOUR cards; the rest receive some degree of status on the Nationwide Tour. If you fail to advance out of the first or second stage of q-school, though, you have no chance to secure full playing privileges on TOUR the following year. This was no matter to Hayes. He reported the situation and was informed that he had to disqualified. As a result, he didn't even make it out of the second stage of q-school. However, to this day he says he has absolutely no regrets.

Baddeley and Hayes are two of the model individuals who enforce that, despite the constant negativity surrounding sports, ambassadors like Jones haven't had their principles fall on deaf ears.